


DO NOT ASSUME A PHYSICAL FORM

by UselessCommon



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Surreal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:29:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28529973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UselessCommon/pseuds/UselessCommon
Summary: It would be grossly irresponsible without a valid reason, such as self-maintenance, work of crucial necessity, reproduction, or a need for medical care. I know, these last two centuries weren't easy, but if we value each other, we must continue holding on.
Kudos: 1





	DO NOT ASSUME A PHYSICAL FORM

Images flashed through Max - torrents of flashes of black and white, innumerable rectangles arranged in vast lines and sprawling trees. Canned sound. The ancient invention called "writing" was, of course, mostly obsolete in practical exchange and storage of information, but conventions like it were still too entrenched, and still held on. Figures flew through and around Max, lines intersected and curved into each other, and a blur of images crashed into his soul. Lines formed sounds, sounds formed objects, objects formed scenes, but everything was intermixed with everything else, and nothing lined up.  
Max focused. The imagery around him crystallized into stable patterns, which formed the usual storylines. An international scandal (Max wasn't sure why a word "international" carried any weight). A message urging to buy an object (Max could not quite comprehend why would anyone bother buying, of all things, an object.) Picture of a feline (Max thought to himself "LOL", even though the notion of laughing out loud was, at the moment, ridiculous). An invitation for a birthday (of someone Max barely knew anyway).  
For a second, Max considered abandoning this platform entirely. However, he made a promise to himself to keep up with reality, and this was perhaps the safest way of doing so.

Reality wasn't safe for the last two hundred years.  
Reality wasn't _relevant_ for the last hundred and forty.

Brief checkups on the social reality and brief physical maintenance trips aside, Max spent most of his time _not being_. It was a state that, perhaps, could be described as blissful, although it is admittedly hard to feel intense joy while you don't exist. Perhaps "painless" is a closer approximation of the appeal. Regardless, at least post-factum, most people enjoy letting go of the illusions of themselves.  
In the distant past, this state was usually associated with total immersion into an activity, although most people, except for the ones who managed to achieve "enlightenment", were only able to experience short periods of it. But such a state, while locked behind a barrier for ordinary humans, was easily accessible to disembodied souls. And currently, most of the world's population, Max included, was being just that - disembodied souls. Shortly after, however, he will have to leave it.

Disembodied souls nominally do not require food or rest, do not age, and most importantly, never get sick. But even they can experience entropy. Without a very substantial level of mastery over your soul, being submerged into the soul realm slowly erodes it, risking complete dissipation. This problem is usually easily fixed by a short visit to a physical plane, giving the body and soul some time to synchronize and reinforce each other.

Max was overdue for a maintenance session of embodiment. He didn't coordinate it to be asynchronous, like many others on his platform did, but he have kept an internal schedule.  
He concentrated. Slowly, his body started to appear from nothingness, modeled after a platonic ideal of his body at the moment of previous disembodiment. He pulled himself by the bootstraps, bone by bone, muscle by muscle. Then, the real world snapped in it's place around him. For the first time in objective months, Max was able to feel the physical surroundings.  
It felt unusually hard and cold.

After a two centuries of systematic disrepair, most buildings degraded, walls cracking, roofs starting to leak, piping collapsing. Traditionalists mourned "the economy" in their time, but by now, the economy was mostly reduced to a simple delivery service. A special deliveryman would come to every house someone lived at and brought them a bottle of clean water, a package of edible organic matter, and, during winters, a package of burnable matter too. Heating and power were right out, so measures had to be taken for people not to freeze during winters too much. Deliverymen would also warn the residents - in astral space - about the serious problems with their house or it's surroundings.

Max stood up and looked around. He could not figure out if the deliveryman came - he wasn't seeing the packages. Probably because they were buried under a pile of rubble upon which he stood.

"Shit!", Max shouted into the surrounding street at the top of his lungs. No one have heard him. The quartal was empty and silent. The quarantine was upheld.

A long string of increasingly deadly diseases have forced the civilization into disembodiment. The first one, killing barely a millionth of the population, was only the beginning. The latest disease was transmitted through, among other things, _sight_. But even long before it, physical existence itself was deemed unsafe. But humans always adapt to the situation. And so do their eternal problems, so even reality being too dangerous to exist in did not stop people from worrying about "international accidents".

[WORK IN PROGRESS]


End file.
